September 25, 2012 — As part of the NBC News 2012 “Education Nation” Summit this week, President Barack Obama sat down with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie to discuss his vision for the future of education in America.

The exclusive interview aired Tuesday on “TODAY” and this afternoon on MSNBC. A full transcript is below. If used, mandatory credit “NBC News / Education Nation.” Video will be available online at TODAY.com, NBCNews.com and EducationNation.com.

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MANDATORY CREDIT: NBC News / Education Nation

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Mr. President, thank you for being with us for Education Nation. We really appreciate it.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
It’s great to be here.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Well, they say all politics is local. But sometimes local politics turn national. So I want to ask you about the strike in Chicago. There was a leading reform advocate who said, “This shows is it a new day for Democrats. They are no longer kowtowing to the unions.” Is that how you see it?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
You know, that’s not how I see it. What I see is that, all across the country, people want results. And I’m a strong believer that the way you get results is to get everybody involved. So it starts at home. Parents have to parent and turn off the T.V. and the video and make sure your kids are doing their homework and communicate with your teachers.

It means teachers striving for excellence in the classroom. It means school boards making sure that teachers have the resources and the creativity to do their best, principals who are leaders. And I think what you saw in Chicago, for example was the fact that they had the shortest school day in– in the country, just about. And– or the shortest school year.

And it was very important, I think, for Mayor Emanuel to say, “Let’s step up our game.” And it was important for the teachers unions also to say, “Let’s make sure we’re not just blaming teachers for a lot of big problems out there. Let’s make sure we’ve got the resources.”

So I’m glad it was resolved. Ultimately, the most important thing, obviously, is performance and– and making sure these kids are doing well. But I do think that from the perspective of Democrats we can’t just sit on the status quo or say that money’s the only issue. Reform is important, also. And that’s been sort of the– the benchmark we’ve used in my administration, is to say, “We’re going to give more money to those schools that are serious about reform but we’re not going to let people make excuses and suggest that it’s just a money problem.”

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Mitt Romney said that, “President Obama has chosen his side in this fight,” that you’ve sided with the unions. At another time last spring, he said, “He can’t talk up reform while indulging in groups that block it.”

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Well– you know– I think Governor Romney and– and– a number of folks try to politicize the issue– and do a lot of teacher-bashing. When I meet teachers all across the country, they are so devoted, so dedicated to their kids. And what we’ve tried to do is actually break through this left/right, conservative/liberal gridlock.

And that’s what my key reform’s been all about, “Race To the Top.” What we’ve said to school districts is, “You’ve gotta emphasize high accountability, high standards. Make sure that teachers know that we’re going to be paying attention to the actual outcomes for kids. But we’re also going to give more resources to schools who are doing the right thing: Training teachers providing them the professional development and support that they need.” some of the things that we’ve done haven’t been popular with teachers unions. You know, I’m a big proponent of charter schools, for example. I think that pay-for-performance makes sense in some situations.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
One of the things that Mayor Emanuel was fighting for was tying teacher evaluations to student performance. The teachers fought it. That’s something that’s at the bedrock of your education policy.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Well, the key is to work with teachers. When you look at what’s happening in Denver, for example, School District, teachers have embraced the idea of merit pay for teachers who are really doing a great job. But what is still a challenge, and I think teachers have a legitimate gripe here, is making sure that the assessments are done properly, that it’s not just based on standardized tests, which, oftentimes, forces schools to teach to the test.

And one of the reasons that we have sought reforms to No Child Left Behind. I think it had great intentions. I give President Bush credit for saying, “Let’s raise standards and make sure that everybody’s trying to meet them.” But because so much of it was tied just to standardized testing, what you saw across the country was teaching to the test.

And I– I can’t tell you how many teachers I meet who say, “You know what? This makes school less interesting for kids. And as a consequence, I’m ending up really shrinking my curriculum, what I can do in– in terms of creativity inside of the classroom.” And that’s not how you or I, for example, when we think about our best teachers, we don’t think about studying a bunch of tests to see how we’re going to score on a standardized test.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Some people think President Obama gets so much support from the teachers unions, he can’t possibly have an honest conversation about what they’re doing right or wrong. Can you really say that teachers unions aren’t slowing the pace of reform?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
You know, I– I– I just really get frustrated when I hear teacher-bashing as evidence of reform. My sister is a former teacher. She now works at the university, working with teachers. And I can tell you that they work so hard. They’re– they’re putting money out of their own pockets in the classroom every single day. They’re not doing it for the pay.

And in some of the toughest school districts, they’re not just teachers, they’re counselors, they’re disciplinarians, they’re parents. Because these kids are coming into these schools with so many different problems. And you know, what is absolutely true is, if we’ve got a bad teacher, we should be able to train them to get better. And if they can’t get better they should be able to get fired. I do think that– you know, reform has to be a part of every agenda in the country– school district in the country, because there’s some schools that are just under-performing.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
And I want to ask you about that. And I’m sure you could recite these statistics by heart. American students: 25th in math.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Yeah.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
17th in science, 14th in reading. And yet, the U.S. spends just about as much as any other country per pupil.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Well you know, part of the problem we’ve got is we’ve got a very diverse country. Compared to some– these smaller countries, where all the kids are coming to school pretty well prepared, they’re not hungry, they’re not poor– in our country, we– you know, we’ve got poor kids and we’ve– some kids who have deep troubles at home. And– and that affects performance.

But there’s no doubt that we can step up our game. So what I’ve proposed, moving forward, building off of Race To the Top, is let’s hire 100,000 new math and science teachers who are actually trained and math and science, as opposed to just being thrown into the classroom without the kind of preparation they need.

Let’s continue to focus on early childhood education, makes a big difference– particularly for kids who are low income. Part of our Race To the Top is let’s figure out what are the drop out factories out there, the– the– couple of thousand schools where we know they’re really under-performing. And let’s transform those schools.

And– and in all these situations, what we have to do is combine creativity and evidence-based approaches. So let’s not use ideology, let’s figure out what works, and figure out how we scale it up. And let’s combine that with resources. And– and this is big argument, and big difference, that I’ve got with Governor Romney in this election.

Because they talk a good game about reform. But when you actually look at their budgets– they’re talking about slashing our investment in education by 20-25%. We’ve already seen 300,000 teachers that have been fired across the country. And as a consequence, class sizes have gone up by 5%.

And, you know, when you talk to a teacher– I was meeting with a couple of teachers in Las Vegas– where they said, in the first week of school, they’ve got 42 kids in a class, some of ‘em sitting on the floor, it takes a couple of weeks before they try to redistribute to maybe get it down to 35 or 36 or 38. That has an impact on kids learning. So reform is important. And resources are important. And you can’t be for one but not be for the other.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Let me ask you about No Child Left Behind. This– the amendment has granted waivers to states because Congress hasn’t amended the law. Allows them to not have as rigorous of standards. Something caught my eye, absolutely, and I bet it caught yours, too. Because of those waivers, in some states, states are permitted to have different proficiency standards by race. So in other words, in the state of Maryland, African-American students are only expected to reach a certain level of proficiency, but white students are expect to– to reach a higher level of proficiency.

They’re expected to improve at a faster rate. But the bottom line is we have a situation in America, in 2012, where you have African-Americans expected not to reach the same level of proficiency as white in certain subjects. And I just wonder, on a gut level, does that bother you?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Of course it bothers me. And– and one of the good things about No Child Left Behind was to say all kids can learn. Black, white, Hispanic, doesn’t matter. That everybody should be able to achieve at a certain level. But the problem that you had was, because it was under-resourced, and because some kids were coming in to school, a lot of minority kids were coming into school, already behind, the schools were not going to be meeting these standards, weren’t even coming close to meeting these standards.

And so what we’ve said to schools is “You’ve gotta continue to keep those high standards. But we are going to measure growth. By age– we’re– we’re still going to keep track of what you’re doing with each group. And you’re not going to have an excuse to do really well with white kids, let’s say, and the black and Hispanic kids aren’t doing as well, but you average it out and you meet something. We’re still going to disaggregate the information about black, white and Hispanic kids, to make sure that everybody’s moving.” But moving towards this growth model of how you measure the job that a school’s doing gives every school an opportunity to continually improve without labeling them as failures, and then not giving them the resources that they need to actually step up.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Let’s talk about college tuition. I know you’ve done a lot, you talk a lot, about what to do on the aid side. On the cost side, tuition is going up by leaps and bounds. It will make your jaw drop when you (CHUCKLE) find out–

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Right.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
–you know, what a little kid today is going to have to pay for college–

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Right.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
–in 20 years. In your State of the Union you said, “I’m putting you on notice, colleges. If you don’t reduce this tuition, you’re going to see your funding drop.” Is there any evidence that they’ve done anything to change, that they’ve listened to that threat?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
There are some schools that have. And you’re right– our first step was to make sure that we were providing the aid and grants that were needed so that the burden wasn’t all falling on kids. And we expanded Pell Grants. We took $60 million out of the student loan program that was going to banks and middle men. We said, “Let’s cut out the middle men. Let’s use that to expand the assistance we’re providing the kids.”

So as a consequence– the average actual out-of-pocket cost for kids has not gone up as fast as tuition has gone up. But that’s not a sustainable model. So we’re going to have to actually keep tuition down. Now, the biggest problem we’ve got with tuition– especially at public universities, is state legislatures have been shifting priorities.

You know, they’re spending money on– you know, prisons, or other requirements, as opposed to the traditional support they’ve given to public education. And what we’ve said to state legislatures is, “You’ve gotta do your part and prioritize this. ‘Cause how well your state does is going to depend on how good your– how well your– your workforce is educated.”

But what we’ve also seen is school starting to do something about costs. You know, in some cases, it may involve thinking about tele-education, and are there ways that kids can get credit in some cases without actually being in a classroom. In some cases, it may involve, frankly, changing the facilities at these colleges and universities.

I mean when you’ve got country club– you know– level– workout facilities and dining halls and all that stuff, that costs money. And– and, you know– I always tell kids when they’re shopping for schools, I said, “You know, when I went to school, we didn’t expect to have good food at the– at the cafeteria. And we didn’t expect to have a five-star health club at– at a university.”

So the– we’re working with schools that can find ways to– to cut costs. But ultimately, states are going to have to step up when we’re talking about public schools. This is also why community colleges are so important, because that’s a good option for a lot of kids. And not everybody’s going to need a four-year college degree. Everybody’s going to need some form of higher education. And community colleges are an under-utilized resource, as we want to provide two million more slots for people who are attending community college to get trained for the jobs that are out there right now.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
What would you advise a high school senior today who had a dream school that would leave him or her $100,000 in debt, or they could go to another school that would not? Should they lower their academic sights for financial reasons?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Well, a couple things I would say. Obviously, each school is different. And some schools have a big ticket retail price, but when you factor in the aid that the schools give, it may not cost the kid as much. But if– if they’ve got a chance of getting a great education without loading up debt– you know, then– you know, sometimes that’s– that might be the better option.

One of the things that, you know, we want to do is make sure the kids know what it is that it’s going to cost them to go to college. So my– as part of our Wall Street reform package, we set up something called The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, which is designed to help consumers on a whole range of things, financial transactions, mortgages, et cetera, credit cards. And one of the things they’ve done is to create a mechanism to work with schools so that kids know before they owe.

They get a clear sheet before they sign up for that school, explaining, even if the college tells you, “Look, don’t worry about cost we’ll– you’ll be able to get the money for your college,”– a lot of times kids don’t know how much they’re actually going to owe at the end of four years. And so we’re saying, “You’ve gotta make that information above so the kids can be better consumers and as a consequence get the best bargain possible.”

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Back to education reform for a moment. Your supporters, even your detractors, say what you did with Race To the Top had a huge impact. It really broke decades of stagnation–

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Yeah.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
–in terms of what educators were willing to do.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Right.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
You did that with, I think, what, less than 1%–

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Right.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
–of the federal budget on education. So it raises the question, “Why not do more? Why not put more federal dollars toward these competitive grants and try to get more impact?”

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Well we’re working with Congress to try to continue to fund this Race To the Top model. There’ve been members of Congress who’ve been resistant. Traditionally, education aid has been spread around by a formula. And, you know, if you’re a Congressman or you’re a Senator from a particular place– you want to make sure you’re getting your fair share, regardless of whether your school districts are reforming or not.

So sometimes there’s resistance to taking money out of the formula side and putting it into these competitive grant programs. But we’re going to keep on pushing, because what– as– as you point out, we ended up seeing 46 states, even the ones that didn’t win the competition, initiate reforms because they were chasing those extra dollars.

And– what we want– to– to say to school districts and states across the country is each state is different. That– that, you know, we’re– we’re not suggesting that all wisdom comes from Washington. But there are some basic baselines that everybody should be able to meet. There– there are some basic standards.

And there’s certain practices that we know work. We know that if you have well-trained teachers, who are given– you know, treated like professionals and given room to be creative in a classroom and a good principal who’s a leader, and you’re keeping track of the progress the kids are making, that kids do better. And– you know– when we have good data that shows how you improve schools it shouldn’t be just sitting in a drawer.

And– and the– idea between Race To the Top is we’ll work with you. We’re not going to tell you exactly what you want to do. But we’re going to tell ‘ya what we think works. And if you want extra dollars to implement that we’re going to be there for you.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Before I let you go, you got in some hot water at home, I heard, a while back, when you let the world know that Malia had gotten a C on a science test. That got me thinking. Have you ever failed a test?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Oh yes.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Really?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Absolutely. You know, I– I– I was– I would say I was a mediocre student until I got to college. I– I goofed off way too much. Malia and Sasha are so far ahead of me basically, in all respects. They’re– they’re just better people than I was at their age. And– and– and they’re doing wonderfully. You know, I– I couldn’t be prouder of them.

I will say that at least at the school they’re at– they’re getting a lot more homework than I– I did when I was that age. I mean they– they– they seem to be working deep into the night. You know– I– I didn’t study that ardent till– the night before an exam. (CHUCKLE)

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
I wondered if Malia, who’s in high school now, you have a high schooler, if she’s studying current events.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
She–

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
And studying this presidential election.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
You know, she is studying current events. And– you know, she’s pretty dispassionate about it. She’s able to kinda separate out Dad, who’s at home, from the debates that are going on out there.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
Are you? (CHUCKLE) Are you in there grading those essays?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
No. You know, I tell her, you know, I want her to think for herself. The– the– the best education is one where kids learn how to learn, and they– they– they learn how to think for themselves. And my entire goal as a parent is the same goal I’ve got as parent– president, which is to– to make sure that every child out here is equipped to– to compete– and to be good citizens in an environment that is changing so fast that you know, what you need– to– to– be able to do is to constantly take in new information, adapt it, analyze it, use it.

And– and I think that we have all the– all the ingredients we need to– to succeed in– in this competitive environment. But it does mean that we’ve got more work to do at the local level. And hopefully the federal government can be helpful. We can’t do it all. We only count for 10% of education funding. But I think that we can leverage the resources we have to make sure that schools are making a difference.

I live in the Denver area, and Denver doesn’t seem to be happy. They, of course, have the same situation at Chicago, and I expect are looking to Chicago for inspiration, but the Denver teachers I know are not happy.

Teachers in Denver don’t get merit pay. They get paid more for doing more. For teaching in a high-needs area, for getting a bilingual certification or getting certified to teach special education. It is called ProCOMP.

Denver is a hotbed of bad reform ideas which has seen no gains in test scores since they embarked on this course.

I work in DPS. Our pay system isn’t quite the type of merit pay that many people think of. We get a raise for finishing professional development units developed by teachers, the district, or schools. We also get a raise if we meat student growth objectives which are created, in general by teachers. There are bonus systems around what neighborhood a school is in and school ratings and other stuff. It’s a bit different than a test based merit pay system. We still have an elected board and people in poorer neighborhoods that are most effected by reform generally vote for anti reform candidates. Unfortunately one of our union candidates won and then changed sides the day after election. His name is Nate Easley. He spear headed blowing up Montbello HS, the school his kids attended. He is a special case. As far as embracing the system this is a falsehood by Obama. People accept it but they don’t love it or embrace it. Our local recently conducted a poll of DPS teachers and more than 50% said they felt disrespected by central admin. I wouldn’t look to Denver as a place where reform has worked really well but I don’t think it is bad like NYC. We don’t have for profit charters and many of our new schools are schools of arts but will still suffer constant school closures and two consecutive buisnessmen superintendents. One of whom is now senator Michael Bennett. How you go from superintendent that provokes parent and teacher protest to a senator is beyond me.

1. Renamed Bush bank bailout from TARP to TALF, continued handing banksters billions in free money
2. Refused to hold even one bankster responsible for ’08 crash responsible – not one (Madoff doesn’t count – he was exposed by the ’08 crash, he didn’t cause it)
3. Renominated Ben Bernanke at the Fed
4. Nominated Geithner to Treasury – the same guy who KNEW the banks were fixing LIBOR and did nothing about it, the same guy who made SURE Goldman Sachs got 100 cents for every dollar owed them by AIG when he was at the Fed in NY
5. HAMP – a mortgage program that has allowed the banks to screw homeowners out of even more money before they foreclosed on them
6.Refusal to push for public option in health care bill
7. Drone Bomb Campaign that kills hundreds every month – including children – in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia.
8. Refusal to hold Bushies accountable for torture
9. Insistence that he has the right to assassinate any American at any time anywhere for any reason if he believes that American is a “terrorist” (the aw-Awlaki rule.)
10. Illegal detention and torture of Bradley Manning
11. War on whistleblowers
12. Increasing secrecy of federal gov’t
13. The “Kill List” his people bragged about to the NY Times

I actually can’t think of even one good reason to vote FOR Barack Obama. He is a liar, a war criminal, a murderer (please see how many innocents he has killed as part of his Drone Bomb Campaign or his “Kill List”), and a shill for the neoliberal cause.

I agree with you Jersey Jazzman. My reasons for supporting Obama have to do with the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Social Security, the environment, The Supreme Court, women’s health care, and support for marriage equality. I am profoundly disappointed in Obama’s education policies. But it would be crazy to support Romney/Ryan or a sure-to-lose third party candidate (a de facto vote for Romney/Ryan).

I have also taken notice of Jill Stein’s education agenda, and I must admit, I like it. I also like the fact that she is against free trade agreements, which I believe, has killed the lower and middle classes. I believe its part of what has boosted the upper classes income.

So close and yet so far. That’s because his children do not have an even remotely similar experience to the majority of children in U.S. schools. And with all due respect Pres. Obama is not a highly skilled professional teacher. Therefore his input and concerns should not be given the power of policy and law. My input to a doctor about my symptoms and relevant lifestyle that might assist in a diagnosis should be taken into consideration but my suggestion that I think I have cancer or just ate too much chocolate should not dictate his procedure!

I am appalled that Obama believes charters are the answer but know that he and the general public don’t know the realities, circumstances, practices and broken promises of so many charters. For that reason I will persist in educations all just as you do Diane until the truth is sufficiently revealed about this brand of reform and its genesis.

How could he not know? Many people have tried to tell him. If he doesn’t know, it’s because he’s not listening. And in any case, if you’re going to come out and say that you’re a big proponent of something, you really should do a bit of research about that something and find out opposing views on it.

I know this is getting pretty trite, but as Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

There are many teachers out there that do not understand the ramifications of charters on traditional charter schools. But then again, Obama should be way ahead of teachers in understanding the context of his policies.

But RttT is very lucrative for his wealthy backers who benefit from the sale technology, online tests, and online curriculum.

And he knows very well that charters perform no better than traditional public schools even though they cherry pick and counsel out students. Charters bust unions and their non-rofit status hides how the money is spent.

Charters hurt the teaching profession, the middle class and women.

Makes me wonder if the GOP purposely decided to field an incompetent candidate, since Obama is so conservative already.

That’s akin to another favorite favorite phrase of his when he accepted the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan (raise the Social Security and Medicare age while cutting benefits- (small %’s that add up to a major hit) “shared sacrifice.” Sure sounds good and makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

In this case it will be teachers and their careers that are sacrificed, along with children and their childhood education so that others may profit and we can boost our nation’s PISA scores. As an old SNL character would say, “Yeah.. that’s the ticket! Yeah, you betcha!”

It must be that this doesn’t affect him or his family, so he doesn’t want to process all the information. He is playing both sides and that is quite clear. Thank you for pointing out the ironies, Alan! It is now crystal clear to me and I cannot vote for him again.

“He skirts the potholes in the argument, aided by helpful questions from the interviewer.”

Exactly, like this in talking about using less than 1% of the federal education budget to sledgehammer through reforms:
“SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
–of the federal budget on education. So it raises the question, “Why not do more? Why not put more federal dollars toward these competitive grants and try to get more impact?”

My students would call him a lying two-faced….. Me, He’s a weasel who wants it both ways and refuses to take a stand (he caves a lot) and responsibility. One reporter bought him a pair of comfortable walking shoes. Did anyone spy him in Chicago last week?

Yes, it appears citizens of the USA are more concerned about an amateur ref making a bad call than a rookie teacher experimenting on our children for 180 or so days. There you have the priorities of the American people.

I can’t speak to this particular situation, but my research tells me that teachers dislike merit pay for several reasons. The first is that teachers prefer to collaborate with each other rather than compete. This can be partly mitigated by school-wide merit pay. The second is that many teachers cannot be fairly measured/evaluated. Merit pay is often based on test scores…how can the music teacher be included? Special education? The third is that the idea of merit pay is just plain insulting. It assumes that teachers are “half-assing it” and will only pull out their good lesson plans if they’re rewarded with additional pay.

He’s trying his best to come up with something that might put the anti union folk at bay. For those of you that don’t remember… before unions we had 5 year old kids working in factories, no days off, no sick time, no safety regulations, no lawsuits… do you really want to go back to no unions? Read up on the factories that caught fire and all the workers died with no consequence to the employer even though the fire was caused by the building in essence being one that should’ve been condemned.

I love how he skirts the issue of the increased testing mandates RttT has required. His argument that teachers shouldn’t teach to the test falls apart when he knows what he has done. This type of outright lying reminds me of another recent, past president.

Our union leaders have sold us out endorsing him. They ought to make union support conditional, and one HUGE condition would be to stop supporting charter schools. We get NOTHING with loyalty in politics, we have to play hardball. Teachers and other school works are a huge voting block…

Okay, let’s look at some of his statements! Sorry for this being long but I had to do it.

““We’re going to give more money to those schools that are serious about reform but we’re not going to let people make excuses and suggest that it’s just a money problem.”

Nope, not just a money problem when some districts spend $7,500 per student while others spend $18,000 per student. When some schools don’t even have enough texts for students, or that they are putting 45 students in a room made for 25. No, no money problems there. Or why would 300,000 teachers have been let go, RIFed, etc. . ., if it’s not a money problem. This is big time EDUDEFORMER TALK.

“You know, I’m a big proponent of charter schools, for example. I think that pay-for-performance makes sense in some situations.”

Nice little qualifier there, “in some situations”. Not to mention he just admitted to being a “big proponent” of private schools of which most charters are receiving public monies with hardly any strings attached. More EDUDEFORMER TALK.

“in Denver, for example, School District, teachers have embraced the idea of merit pay for teachers”

Show me the beef, don’t believe that one bit. Maybe two or three gullible teachers have expressed that opinion but I can’t believe that it is more than a handful.

“you know, reform has to be a part of every agenda in the country– school district in the country, because there’s some schools that are just under-performing.”

EXQUISITE EDUDEFORMER TALK! Because some schools are supposedly “under performing” then all schools should be under the edudeformer’s gun. Great logic from a supposed leader.

“We’ve already seen 300,000 teachers that have been fired across the country.”

Notice the verbal slip up here. Or maybe it’s a Freudian slip. He bluntly states that these teachers have been “fired” implying a level of incompetency that has no basis in reality but reinforces the EDUDEFORMERS AGENDA.

Man oh man, how much more crap can come out of his mouth. Why any public school teacher would vote for him, based on education policy alone, much less all the other civil liberty issues, continual warmongering, and overall ineptitude is beyond me.

I don’t know how these far-right and neo-lib reformers can point to Finland when its policies are the diametric opposite of ours, though, ironically, based on ideas developed in America by progressive reformers of the twenties and thirties.

It does seem like we are aboard the Titanic, steaming full speed ahead toward that iceberg.

He should talk more to his sister about teaching. He thinks that if 1,000s of math and science majors are hired, they can teach. We know that knowing your subject doesn’t always make you an effective teacher.
All these people who are not educators want to reform the system but they don’t realize that it’s way more complicated than that. It’s not just venders training teachers, it’s not just rigor and it’s definitely not just test scores. It’s admin,teachers, parents, community, and kids working together in a school with all the resources that they need available.

“I would say I was a mediocre student until I got to college. I– I goofed off way too much” admits Obama in this interview. I wonder if he blames his teachers for his goofing off in grade school and high school? Because if he were a student today, and he goofed off and got poor test scores, his teachers could be deemed ineffective and in jeopardy of losing their jobs. All because of his own Race to the Top initiatives. I wonder what he thinks about that…

IMHO, morality and practicality demand that Obama and Romney [and their respective parties] should both have their feet held to the fire when it comes to education. The stakes are very high: the existence of public education and of professional educators and paraeducators. No double standards that favor the candidate of one’s own philosophical bent, no lesser/greater evilism excuses that overlook and minimize, no blind loyalty that craves fantastical results and seeks the inevitable post-mortem mea culpas.

Re election 2012 and education, I am reminded of a character named Anthony Alvarado who appears in Diane’s DEATH AND LIFE. On p. 61 she recounts speaking to him in 2007 “at length” and how he “was mortified by the public humiliation of the fifteen administrators” [for context, please buy and read her book; no, Diane did not put me up to this! :) ]

Sorry, Tony, way too late. In for a penny, in for a pound. You may be a better person in other ways and situations, but when it really counted, when your professional standing and the bulging contents of your wallet and being a famous edureformer were on the line — you took the easy way out and did something that should haunt you for the rest of your life. And it was predictable and avoidable. You rightly found yourself wanting. Don’t like looking in the mirror much these days? :(

Whatever the decisions made by the readers of this blog, don’t put yourselves in the position of being found wanting — by yourselves. The stakes are too high.

Four more years of Obama, and the whole nation will look like New Orleans.

Put an ed deformer Republican in the White House and at least some Democrats will come around and go back to supporting public education. They won’t do that as long as it’s one of their own pushing privatization, but they will oppose a Republican who is attacking their traditional base. Same with the unions. They opposed merit pay when a Republican pushed it, but turned around and supported it when it was a Democrat in the White House pushing it. The only way the unions will ever oppose merit pay again is if Romney is elected.

I want my union back and I want to have two parties again. That won’t happen if Obama is reelected. I am sick of our union leaders “sitting at the table” with those who are destroying us. I want to fight. And we won’t be able to fight the ed deformers until a Republican is in the White House.

As noted above in other posts, Obama has joined with the worst of the Republicans on many other issues besides education. There really is no reason left to vote for him.

Class sizes here in Las Vegas are not going down. When they reshuffled on count day we lost teachers at our sites There are now 36 kids in all our 4th and 5th grade classes. Schools are only staffed at 93%. I think it is the districts way of punishing the Union for winning arbitration where it was clearly proved the money for salary was there. This district is so obscenely top heavy with administrators and coordinators. Every elementary has at least one instructional strategist or more. These strategists basically help coordinate testing and have almost no contact with students. I feel that money would be much better spent on another teacher to help lower class sizes. The position is a joke. Morale is so bad here.

Funny, Mr. Obama says he knows of our plight, I’m in CCSD too, our roof leaks, our water is out quite often, and our air conditioning is out. What do we get? More tests called discovery learning to tie in to the common core and a new report card based only on test results from the computer, listing students as meeting, exceeding, or approaching standards. They spent millions on this as well as more consultants. I’d just like a roof that doesn’t leak in the rain.

Count me in as another Green Party voter in California. I just retired after 30 years in elementary, but am concerned for the children and my colleagues still having to endure this. Our Superintendent is a Harvard MBA with little classroom/school site experience who is in big time on the reforms. I think he would go along with Romney in saying , “I like to fire people.” Test scores are the only real thing he’s got. Our district includes some of the poorest areas in the nation, so guess where people, especially principals, have lost their jobs. Also, teachers have to pray if they’re over forty.

OK, Mr. President, if you really want Americans to believe that you are truly informed about education and are sincere about the quality and effectiveness of the charter schools you promote, then here is a list of KIPP schools in the DC area that you can send your girls to: http://www.kippdc.org/collegeprep/

In my lifetime, Jimmy Carter was the only president brave enough to walk the talk and send his child to a public school. Show us that you are not an elitest who wants one thing for your own kids and something very different for the children of everyone else in America. Send your daughters to KIPP!